Gutowski: City owns reasons for optimism

The Inside Stuff

September 19, 1991|By Bill Tanton

The Maryland Stadium Authority's Walt Gutowski, who works full-time on getting an NFL franchise for Baltimore, is upbeat about the city's chances, despite the negativism that resulted from Robert Tisch's withdrawal from the local effort to buy half the New York Giants.

Says Gutowski: "We don't feel that the loss of Tisch killed it at all. We've had some interesting prospective owners surface just in the last month such as Tom Clancy and the Malcolm Glazer family. I think we have a pleasant problem choosing between all these potential owners. Right now we're looking at scheduling a preseason game here."

Incidentally, one of those prospective owners, Leonard "Boogie" Weinglass, owner of Merry-Go-Round Enterprises, is already involved in one Baltimore sport. Boogie has become a major sponsor of Stu Satosky's Baltimore Pro Bouts, which will put on a show Oct. 9 at the Pikesville Armory. He's especially interested in promoting the career of local fighter Vincent Pettway, who will meet Juan Rondon in the main event.

* Don't look for talented freshman Larry Washington to be starting any time soon at Maryland.

Fellow freshman David DeArmas tells me Washington "bulls right over people in practice," but older heads at College Park say the Randallstown High standout still has a lot to learn.

Raphael Wall, freshman running back from Wilde Lake High, was injured in the Big 33 game this summer and still isn't 100 percent. It looks as if he and Washington will be red-shirted.

* Orioles public relations man Bob Miller called to point out that it is not the Orioles who are selling the dirt at Memorial Stadium, it's the Kols Container Co., which paid a licensing fee to Major League Baseball, in which the Orioles share profits. The Orioles, of course, had to give their blessing to the project.

No matter who's doing the actual selling, I still think it's tacky. But Miller says: "This is America. If there are people willing to buy the dirt, then people are going to sell it."

* Don Fritz, archivist at the Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Foundation at Homewood, has an 1895 Lacrosse Guide with ads for equipment. A stick sold then for $1.25. Larry Subotich, at Lax World, says a lacrosse stick today sells for about $56.

* Rear Adm. Thomas C. Lynch, the onetime teammate of Roger Staubach at Navy who's now the Naval Academy superintendent, had a talk with the present team after last week's 17-10 loss at Virginia.

"I really thought we were going to win that game," says the admiral, "and I told these guys they had to play that way every week -- motivated and focused. They can't take lightly a Ball State [which beat Navy, 33-10] or a William & Mary [which plays at Annapolis Saturday]. Nowadays anybody can beat you if you're not ready. Central Michigan proved that last week by beating Michigan State."

Adm. Dolly Fitzgerald (USN, Ret.), a visitor at a recent Navy football practice, was asked how he thought this year's 0-2 team would be. "Ask me in three weeks," he says, which is a wise answer. With his seniority, nobody argues with him. He's been watching Navy practices since 1917. He graduated in '21.